Tobacco smoke purifier



Patented Sept. 12, 1939 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE No Drawing. Application September Serial No. 39,125

3 Claims.

My invention relates to an improvement in tobacco smoke purifiersused in, or with, cigarettes, cigars, or pipes.

The object of my invention is to neutralize, paralyze or render harmless the noxious gases contained in tobacco smoke and to filter out certain other products of combustion such as rubber, tar and various gums, without impairing the characteristic aroma of the tobacco smoke.

A further object is to render the butt end of a cigar or cigarette incapable of supporting combustion so that when the lighted end is consumed down to the filter, the fire is automatically extinguished.

Other objects will appear more fully hereinafter. 1

The use of smoking tobacco is, today, both well known and widespread in spite of the fact that it is generally recognized that smoking is very g injurious to the delicate membranes of the nose and throat and is frequently credited with causing cancers of the lips, mouth and throat. In the case of cigarettes, habitual smoking gives rise to what is popularly termed a cigarette cough. Various means are employed to reduce this hazard. For use at the time of smoking there have heretofore been employed a number of chemical admixtures and chemical purifiers or mechanical smoke filters in an endeavor to nullify the harmful smoke ingredients. Some chemicals, intimately mixed with the tobacco, while apparently neutralizing the injurious contents, release, upon combustion equally toxic substances or destroy or impair the aroma that is delighted in by 3 tobacco smokers. Certain other neutralizing agents are unstable and when they reach the tobacco consumer have decomposed and fail to accomplish their purpose. Some agents cause an unpleasant taste in the mouth of the smoker, or if they do not in reality, they, because of their synthetic chemical nature offend the esthetic sense of the fastidious smoker whose lips must contact them. Still other filters and purifying agents are difiicult and impractical for commer- 4 'cial adaptation.

My purifying and filtering agents surmount these obstacles and difliculties.

The noxious gases of tobacco smoke are largely composed of alkaloids such as nicotine, pyridine, picoline and ammonia and acid producing gases such as hydrogen sulfide, carbon monoxide, cyanogen and others. Tobacco being a product of nature varies in its chemical composition with each crop and may be affected still further by the various methods employed in preparing the raw tobacco for consumption. The percentages of deleterious substances present in tobacco smokes, therefore, vary widely. Ordinarily, tobacco smoke is alkaline in its reaction due to the preponderance of the alkaloids, but to some tobaccos, nicotine binding agents are added in processing which alter the character of the smoke as taken in by the smoker. These agents function, when the tobacco is consumed, by reacting with the smoke as it passes through the tobacco and thereby releasing acids which neutralize the alkaloids. To accomplish this, an abundance of acid fumes are present that not only succeed in their purpose but contribute an excess of acid gases. Thus one kind of poison is substituted for another, and the smoke of cigarette tobaccos so treated is marked by the biting sensation on the tongue and in the throat of the smoker. As described further on I have devised a simple but effective apparatus for quickly determining whether a tobacco smoke is acid or alkaline in reaction.

No one agent can be expected to function equally well with either type of smoke. I have discovered, however, that any tobacco smoke can be largely depoisoned by the use of roasted coffee or roasted tea or an extract thereof as the sole or principal element in an absorbent and purifying compsition to be employed in the butt end of a cigar or cigarette or in the bowl of a pipe or in the stem'of a cigar or cigarette holder.

Roasted coffee has a chemical content of tannic acid, caffeine, fibrin, albumen, cellulose and aromatic oils that constitutes not only an efficient absorber of poisonous tobacco smoke gases and a filter of other by-products of combustion, but it makes an ideal, natural product to use with tobacco in the various forms in which it is smoked. Roasted tea, I have discovered is equally effective as a tobacco smoke purifier and roasted coffee and roasted tea may be used separately or in a mixture of any proportions, with or without auxiliary agents hereinafter described depending upon the chemical and physical characteristics of the tobacco with which the purifying agent is to be used and the chemical composition of the coffee or tea. Any natural product having the same basic elements as coffee or tea may likewise be employed.

While it would be difiicult and perhaps impossible to describe each of the complex chemical changes that take place it may be said in general that passing tobacco smoke through or over ground or shredded roasted coffee, or ground or shredded roasted tea causes the tannic acid of the coffee or tea to neutralize the alkaloid gases of the smoke and the caffeine or theine to neutralize the acid gases. These reactions are aided by the heat of the gases and the steam driven off from the burning and heated tobacco, which create a brewing effect on the coffee or tea and liberate both the neutralizing agencies and the aromatic oils which facilitate the absorption of the tar, rubber and gums in the smoke. Furthermore, roasted coffee and tea are very hygroscopic and contain about 10 to 15% of free water under ordinary conditions. Presence of this water aids the neutralizing action, first, because moisture promotes chemical reactions generally, and second, because nicotine and the other tobacco salts are very soluble and mix with water in all proportions.

To adapt the roasted coffee or tea for purifying tobacco smoke as it is indrawn by a smoker I place ground or shredded roasted coffee or tea in that end of the cigar or cigarette which is held between the lips of the smoker. Normally it may occupy that much of the length usually termed the butt. In the case of a cigarette this may be as much as one quarter of the length or considerably less. In any event an efficient filter can ge had at no sacrifice of smokeable tobacco. For pipes or cigarette or cigar holders, the roasted coffee or tea is conveniently placed either in the bowl or the stem so that the smoke passes through it before passing out of the stem into the mouth of the smoker.

I may also mix the coffee or tea with the tobacco and this composition will also serve as an effective smoke filter and purifier.

To hold the ground coffee or tea in position and to facilitate rolling into the cigar or cigarette a binding agent such as a fibrous material is desirable. I prefer to use fibrous asbestos for not only is this itself an efiicient mechanical filtering agent but it renders the butt end of the cigar or cigarette more fire resisting. Then too, the fibrous asbestos may be added to the coffee during the roasting process so that it will assume the color of tobacco and blend harmoniously in association with it. In the roasting process it will take up some of the tannic acid released from the coffee and thus make that much additional tannic acid available for neutralizing purposes when the purifier is to be used with tobacco smoke alkaline in reaction. 4

The fineness or coarseness of the ground coffee may be varied to suit the mechanical and commercial requirements of the filter, the coarser particles being more easily retained in place by the fibrous asbestos, while the finer granulations offer greater surface area for the chemical reactions. The quantity of asbestos employed may be varied to suit the size of the coffee granules, density of rolling of the filter, length of filter and like conditions.

Because of the variables encountered in using natural products, the specific application of my invention requires a preliminaryexamination of the tobacco and coffee or tea to be used, and an adjustment of the neutralizing properties of the coffee or tea.

An illustrative example is given:

As pointed out before, tobacco smoke as inhaled by the smoker may be either acid or alkaline in reaction. To make a rapid determination in the caseof a cigar I used a clean glass tube whose inside diameter was sufiiciently large to hold the cigar at its butt end. About three inches from one end of the tube I lightly but firmly stufied a small Wad of absorbent cotton so that a chamber, between the cigar end and the cotton would be formed, comparable to the mouth cavity of a smoker. In this chamber I placed a piece of red and a piece of blue litmus paper. The cigar was wedged in place and lighted, the smoke being drawn through the tobacco, over the litmus paper, passed the cotton and thence out of the tube. The red litmus paper turning blue evidenced the predominance of alkaline in the smoke.

Next I prepared a purifying composition as follows: First, I prepared a salt solution (its function being described hereinafter) having the color and taste of coffee by taking the beverage or liquid obtained by boiling roasted coffee and added a salt expressed by the formula so that the solution contained 60 to of the salt. Second, I added sufficient of this solution to ground roasted coffee beans to obtain a damp mix. Third, after permitting the treated coffee granules to dry I mixed 4 cc. of them with fibrous asbestos to make a tobacco smoke purifying composition.

Using the tube described I eliminated the cotton and placed this purifying composition immediately in back of the butt end of a cigar similar to the one first tested. This cigar weighed 5.2 grams and contained .15288 gram of nicotine. By passing the tobacco smoke from the glass tube through an absorption liquid I was able to determine what nicotine escaped past my composition. After burning the cigar down to a normal butt length, upon analysis the purifying composition was found to contain .08465 gram of nicotine and the absorption liquid .0099 gram. In other words my purifier had entrapped, among other substances, about of the nicotine that would ordinarily have passed into the mouth of a smokf er. Adjustment by increase in purifying composi tion length or in strength of alkaline neutralizers would have increased this percentage.

To adjust my composition to meet the demands of the particular tobacco smoke with which it is to be employed requires additions to the coffee or tea and these additional ingredients may be said to be drawn from three general groups of materials.

Group 1.For alkaline reacting tobacco smoke I-sometimes fortify the coffee or tea with coffee or. tea extract or suitable organic acids such as tannic acid, citric acid, etc., to the extent necessary to insure neutralization of the alkaloids in the smoke. The acid may be added to the coffee or tea or to the fibrous or other binding agent used in the filter.

Group 2.--For acid reacting tobacco smoke I have discovered that by adding potassium or sodium silicate or an oxide, the excess acid gases will be neutralized. These additions may be made to the coffee or tea or the binding agent, or, by using asbestos paper pulp as a binding agent, sodium silicate can be introduced into the filter.

Group 3.I find it desirable to add to the coffee or tea, a salt relatively high in water of crystallization and preferably a salt of the alum or iron group. Therefore, I use such a salt in a dual capacity. First, as stated before, coffee and tea contain free water. Use of a salt with bound water compensates for the evaporation of this free water, such as occurs when the European practice of seasoning cigars and cigarettes is followed, and insures an adequate supply. The tannic acid of the tea or coffee is so greedy for water that it intermingles at once with the bound water as soon as it is released by the hot steam and gases of the smoke. Second, the bound alkaline or acid content of the salt is available to aid in neutralizing the toxic gases of the smoke. Only mineral acids in bound form can be used and these are superior to organic acid additions because they are more stable under the heat additions encountered. These salts may be added to the coffee or tea or an extract thereof and thus will assume the taste and color of the coffee or tea and be an intimate part thereof.

As will be obvious from the foregoing, the tobacco smoke purifying composition of my invention consists of granules of coffee arranged in porous formation; the salt of the alum or iron group used for the purpose described is one containing water of crystallization.

It will be apparent that there are many methods of applying my invention and the following serve as examples.

For alkaline reacting tobacco smoke:

1. Ground roasted coffee treated with a salt of the alum or iron group and mechanically bound with fibrous asbestos.

2. Fibrous asbestos or cotton, impregnated with an extract of coffee. I

3. Shredded asbestos paper pulp impregnated with an extract of coffee.

4. Shredded vegetable bark high in tannic acid content (for example, oak bark) treated with coffee extract and alum or iron salts.

For tobacco smoke in which acid fumes predominate the following are typical examples of filter compositions utilizing my invention:

1. Ground, roasted coffee or tea treated with potassium silicate and mechanically bound with fibrous asbestos.

2. Shredded roasted coffee intimately mixed with and bound by shredded asbestos paper pulp.

3. Asbestos paper pulp saturated with boiling coffee plus sodium silicate, then dried and shredded.

It must be remembered that tobacco, coffee and tea are products of nature and as such, the particular chemical composition of any lot or shipment can be ascertained only by a detailed chemical analysis. The most efiicient application of my invention contemplates, first, the determination of the character of the poisons present in the tobacco smoke which can be done by means of the apparatus I have hereinbefore described, and second, another test using a purifier composed of the coffee or tea to be employed, and third, adjustment of the acid or alkaline neutralizing content of the purifier as herein indicated until the smoke tested proves neutral.

Use of the roasted coffee or roasted tea or extract thereof is the essence of my invention and various embodiments of my invention may be made without departing from its scope. All of the foregoing description is intended to be illustrative and not limiting upon my invention.

Many advantages of my invention are obvious from my description. It makes a stable filter essentially of materials in common household use. It is not consumed with the tobacco, it does not soil the fingers, its color is the color of tobacco,

it is pleasant to the taste and it is a fire preventive due to its automatic cigarette butt extinguishing feature.

What I claim is:

1. A substantially inoombustible tobacco smoke purifying composition comprising granules of cof fee arranged in porous formation, coated with a salt of the alum or iron group containing Water of crystallization.

2. A substantially inoombustible tobacco smoke 

